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How Harvey Mudd Transformed Its CS Program And Nearly Closed Its Gender Gap

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Re: How Harvey Mudd Transformed Its CS Program And Nearly Closed Its Gender Gap

#12
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Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the higher female acceptance rate may be because only good female students do CS. If you have a hostile environment, only the most motivated will succeed. It's like a sieve. You are applying selective pressure against a certain group of people succeeding. Expect to get only the most motivated. Not saying this is the case in reality, but I think the conclusion that they're indiscriminately accepting women is fac…

Close to triple through natural occurrence? Come now, you're the one being facile.

The point is the acceptance rate by itself is too murky a statistic to prove the gp's point.

Re: How Harvey Mudd Transformed Its CS Program And Nearly Closed Its Gender Gap

#13
post #9
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation needed. It is much more plausible that these engineering colleges have laxer requirements for females in order to get a 50/50 gender balance rather than public school discrimination.

Citation needed. Anecdotal rebuttal: I know a bunch of female students at Harvey Mudd and that doesn't appear to be the case.

It doesn't need a citation, it is supported by Occam's razor while you are suggesting a complex explanation.

How does Harvey Mudd magically close their gender gap as though they suddenly decided to stop discriminating against females all these years?

If the girls you knew were, say 10% less capable compared to male applicants, would you be able to tell? I doubt it.

Re: How Harvey Mudd Transformed Its CS Program And Nearly Closed Its Gender Gap

#14
post #9
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation needed. It is much more plausible that these engineering colleges have laxer requirements for females in order to get a 50/50 gender balance rather than public school discrimination.

Citation needed. Anecdotal rebuttal: I know a bunch of female students at Harvey Mudd and that doesn't appear to be the case.

Please use "women" instead of "girls", unless you are talking about children under ~11.

Re: How Harvey Mudd Transformed Its CS Program And Nearly Closed Its Gender Gap

#15
post #14
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation needed. Anecdotal rebuttal: I know a bunch of female students at Harvey Mudd and that doesn't appear to be the case.

Please use "women" instead of "girls", unless you are talking about children under ~11.

what if they're under 21? I'd call a male college student a boy in most situations.

Re: How Harvey Mudd Transformed Its CS Program And Nearly Closed Its Gender Gap

#16
post #13
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation needed. Anecdotal rebuttal: I know a bunch of female students at Harvey Mudd and that doesn't appear to be the case.

It doesn't need a citation, it is supported by Occam's razor while you are suggesting a complex explanation. How does Harvey Mudd magically close their gender gap as though they suddenly decided to stop discriminating against females all these years? If the girls you knew were, say 10% less capable compared to male applicants, would you be able to tell? I doubt it.

> If the girls you knew were, say 10% less capable compared to male applicants, would you be able to tell? I doubt it.

If you can't tell then what difference does it make?

Re: How Harvey Mudd Transformed Its CS Program And Nearly Closed Its Gender Gap

#17
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't need a citation, it is supported by Occam's razor while you are suggesting a complex explanation. How does Harvey Mudd magically close their gender gap as though they suddenly decided to stop discriminating against females all these years? If the girls you knew were, say 10% less capable compared to male applicants, would you be able to tell? I doubt it.

> If the girls you knew were, say 10% less capable compared to male applicants, would you be able to tell? I doubt it. If you can't tell then what difference does it make?

It makes a difference to the male applicants that would've been accepted if there wasn't a bias.

Re: How Harvey Mudd Transformed Its CS Program And Nearly Closed Its Gender Gap

#18
post #14
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation needed. Anecdotal rebuttal: I know a bunch of female students at Harvey Mudd and that doesn't appear to be the case.

Please use "women" instead of "girls", unless you are talking about children under ~11.

Point taken although I'm not sure I agree. I hope "female students" is an acceptable compromise.

Re: How Harvey Mudd Transformed Its CS Program And Nearly Closed Its Gender Gap

#19
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't need a citation, it is supported by Occam's razor while you are suggesting a complex explanation. How does Harvey Mudd magically close their gender gap as though they suddenly decided to stop discriminating against females all these years? If the girls you knew were, say 10% less capable compared to male applicants, would you be able to tell? I doubt it.

> If the girls you knew were, say 10% less capable compared to male applicants, would you be able to tell? I doubt it. If you can't tell then what difference does it make?

With only 660 students and around 3,000 highly qualified applicants, I'm pretty sure Mudd can be very picky about who they admit without introducing a bias.

Re: How Harvey Mudd Transformed Its CS Program And Nearly Closed Its Gender Gap

#20
post #5

Here are Harvey Mudd's acceptance rates by gender: Men 14.4% Women 38% Source: http://www.parchment.com/c/college/college-545-harvey-mudd-c... I am perpetually bamboozled how anyone can think anecdotes like this matter. If Harvard wanted too I am sure they could make half their undergraduate population disabled black lesbians. That does not prove that your average state school is horrible and discriminatory just beca…

Doing the math it looks like there were about 873 female applicants and 2271 male applicants.

It's certainly possible that a higher percentage of the much smaller female group were qualified than the larger male group.

In this case, where the assumption is that high school females are less likely to want to pursue a math/sci/tech degree, I'd guess it's likely that the average female applicant to Harvey Mudd is more qualified than the average male, simply because she's already going against the grain by applying.

But none of that has anything to do with the extremely positive aspect of making the compSci program more fun and accessible to all comers by ditching Java and C++ in the intro classes and focusing on solving real world problems. Bravo to that.

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